


On The Road That Will Take Me Home

by Capella



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-05 01:52:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capella/pseuds/Capella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neither of Danger's pilots know what to do after the Breach is closed. Raleigh cooks breakfast for the Chois and Mako considers the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On The Road That Will Take Me Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [owlpockets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlpockets/gifts).



The pan’s sizzle increased right before it spat a hot glob of grease upwards and onto the hand of the man flipping the bacon. “Shit!” Raleigh pulled his hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to the stinging spot reflexively. He pulled it away from his lips and checked it, but there was no actual burned. There were just a few small dots from the hot grease. He’d be fine. The smell of bacon and maple filled the air, the oven was outputting warmth that filled the small kitchen, and Raleigh sighed contentedly. Everything was good.

Making breakfast was a comforting ritual for Raleigh, one of the few constants of his entire life. He'd always loved to cook, had helped his mom prepare holiday dinners while his dad played outside with Yancy. After she died and the family fell apart, he continued to make meals after school, while Yancy was at work to bring in money. He'd even managed to keep up the habit while part of the Jaeger program, despite the busy schedule of first being a cadet and next being an active-duty pilot. Once he'd charmed his way into the kitchens and proven he knew his way around a burner, he soon realized that somehow, his schedule left him with enough free time to do kitchen work on days with major meal events.

(He always suspected that Marshall Pentecost had had a hand in that, but he’d never tried to actively prove the issue. If he’d been assured that the Marshall would have to honestly answer 5 questions he asked, “are you scheduling me so I can help cook for Christmas” wasn't the sort of thing he’d put on that list; it was too petty compared to the more interesting ones.)

Really, the only time he hadn’t cooked his own meals was the first year post-Knifehead. Then he’d been too busy recovering and trying to find a job and get on his feet. He’d gotten the construction work to work for rations, and managed to supplement his lifestyle by helping work the site canteens when he wasn't working. There wasn’t somewhere to go after the shift was done, so why not? It gave him a chance to be around other people and bask in reflected camaraderie, even if it wasn’t inclusive of him.

Being alone just wasn't in his nature. Like cooking, being social was important to him. The first few days in the Hong Kong Shatterdome had been hard on Raleigh. Waking up alone in his assigned room had been a punch in the gut. He'd shared a room with Yancy as a boy, inhabited the Academy barracks with the rest of their training group, gone back to sharing with Yancy, and after he'd lived in overcrowded barracks while working construction. The only other time he'd roomed alone was the first six months. 

He had always been an early riser, up by 0530. There weren't too many others in the Shatterdome awake at that hour, unless they were at their duty station, so when he jogged the halls he often found them echoing with only his own footsteps. After his first two meals in the mess hall had ended poorly, he started slinking into the kitchen, grabbing whatever was around, and leaving to eat in a corner in peace. He would have preferred to cook food for himself, but he didn't know if there were private kitchens for that in this Shatterdome, and there was never time to ask anyone. 

After the Breach was closed, there was time enough to ask the kitchen about helping out, and a great deal of goodwill from the residents of the Shatterdome meant he probably could have arranged to help even if he’d had no talent. But still Raleigh hesitated. This wasn’t his old Shatterdome, with the kitchen space and workers he’d come to feel a part of, and he felt afraid to impose on them. Who knew what his role really was, now that there were no more kaiju to fight, Jaegers to pilot? He wanted to be useful by helping in the kitchens, but not to get in the way.

It was the Chois who solved his problem, as they had so many others in the past. Three days post-Pitfall, Tendo had knocked on Raleigh’s door, waking him and Mako up, asking if they’d like to use the kitchen in the family wing. Mako had made irritated noises, rolled over, and pulled her blankets over her head. Raleigh had padded off after Tendo and made breakfast for the three of them. The next day, he’d made enough to share with two of Crimson’s crew members who had walked by. The third day, he had his own key and had fed 6 additional people. He was beginning to fear that the kitchen staff were going resenting his mini-operation.

The first package of bacon was done, so he slipped it onto a plate to cool and ripped open the second package. Once that was in the pan, he checked the oven timer. 40 seconds left. He flicked on the light and peered at the biscuits - they looked done, so he stopped the timer, turned off the oven, and pulled those out as well. Biscuits done, bacon on the way, now all he needed was to get the eggs done and he could start serving.

_And make the oatmeal for Mako. Mustn’t forget that._

Warmth flooded him as he thought about his copilot. The bond between copilots was special. When you were with yours, you could always find a moment of solace or normalcy, whichever one you needed at the moment. Raleigh was grateful he'd ended up with Mako as his partner - he didn’t know how Herc had managed with Chuck, and now he would never ask. She was flawless in every way - he couldn't have asked for a better second partner if he’d had to have someone else in his mind.

He did wish her taste in food was better, and he pictured her as he thought that. He felt nothing back in response to the teasing thought. It was to be expected, given that it had been a week since they Drifted that last time. But it was habit of his to send out to his copilot, and there was no reason to consciously work on breaking it, not when the ghosting would fade over time till it was nothing.

A sound from behind him startled him, and Raleigh nearly dropped the fork fully into the grease as he turned. Tendo’s voice was apologetic when he spoke. “Smells good. You’re gonna have half the wing knocking to get in here.”

Raleigh grinned automatically, but there’s a touch of embarrassment behind it. “It’s-”

Tendo didn’t let him finish. “It’s a gift you’ve got there. Gonna open a restaurant?”  
“Haven’t thought about it.”

“We could hire you as our live-in chef,” Allison teased. “Know how to make mashed baby food?”

Now Raleigh started to color.

“He will be mine if he’s anyone’s,” Mako said, slipping into the kitchen and shutting the door carefully behind her.

“Good morning,” Raleigh said a little too loudly, relieved at her perfect timing.

She smiled at him, then her eyes widened. “Bacon.”

He whirled and quickly flipped it over to cook on the other side. Then he leaned against the stove and looked back at his friends. “What’s your plan today?”

“More breakdown of the mechanicals,” Allison said.

“Same. Also, deflecting the press who want to hear words from Marshall - Hansen,” said Tendo. 

At the reference to Herc’s new position, Mako’s face crumpled for a brief instant, before she put her composure back together.

Allison couldn’t have seen it, but she must have sensed it. “I’ll see if he’s up for it.”

“He’s never going to be up for dealing with the press,” Tendo muttered in a tone that indicated he didn’t have the patience for it, either. “But he’s gotta do it sometime.”

“Would it help if we talked to them instead?” Raleigh offered. 

He turned his back to rescue and plate the bacon. hoping that paying attention to the food would hide his expression from the rest of the group. It was almost too crispy, though he was sure people would eat it anyway. He hadn’t done press interviews since Danger was piloted by both Beckets; he rather thought he’d rather face a kaiju in the water on top of the escape pod than talk to the press junket. He suspected Mako felt the same way.

“It would get them off our backs for a bit,” Tendo admitted. “But you only have to do it if you want to.”

Raleigh’s shoulders went back and his spine stiffened as he prepared to answer, but the words came from Mako’s mouth instead. “We’ll do one today,” she said. “Pick the best.”

“I know who it’ll be. She’s pretty fair - ” Tendo started.

“Don’t,” Alison ordered, enough steel in her tone to match the materials she worked with every day. “We’re going to eat now, talk about work later.”

“Yes ma’am,” Tendo said, and even with his back turned Raleigh could picture the grin and mock salute he was throwing his wife. Some personal habits never changed.

She picked up the plates of bacon from Raleigh’s elbow and carried them to one of the tables. “You started the eggs yet?”

He shook his head. “Workin’ on it.”

“I’ll take it,” she said as she came back to the stove. “You and Mako go start on your breakfast. You doing the press, you gonna need it.”

He chose not to protest, even though he’d been looking forward to making the omelets. Instead he headed to the cabinet, pulled down the oatmeal, and began measuring it into a bowl. He added two teaspoons of brown sugar, precisely measured, and a quick shake of cinnamon. Hot water from the dispenser completed the setup, and he set the bowl down and bowed semi-formally to Mako. “Your breakfast, my lady,” he announced, searching her eyes for any sign that she’d taken offense to his theatricality.

“Thank you,” she said as she snagged a spoon and began eating. 

Raleigh returned to the hot water dispenser and began to prepare two cups of tea. First he used the lower temperature setting to pull a cup for Mako, then slid it to higher and poured it half-full for himself. From the cabinet he extracted one of Mako’s favorite bagged green teas and a silk satchel of the chai which he was trading chocolate chip cookies to one of Crimson’s techs for. The bags were placed and he brought hers to the table, setting it down before continuing to the refrigerator to pull some milk and fill his cup to the top. Then it was back past the table to set his down, and then over to grab a plate, some biscuits, and a few slices of bacon. Throughout all of the movements he deftly avoided running into Allison at the stove.

“You move like a waiter,” Tendo said around a mouthful of biscuit.

“Practice,” he said. A fleeting image floated up from the depths of his memories, the small kitchen in the embassy housing in Budapest. There hadn’t been room the whole family to fit in there, but there had been room for him to stand by the small countertop and help in chopping and handing things to his mother. It had been the smallest kitchen he’d cooked in, but was one of his favorites because of all the warm memories.

Mako smiled up at him from her meal, and he wondered if she’d seen that memory any of the times they’d Drifted. “You’re glad to be back in a kitchen,” and her tone made it clear it wasn’t a guess. She knew how much this mattered to him.

He nodded. “It’s relaxing. It makes me think of better times.”

“There will be better times ahead,” Allison said from the stove. “Even if it takes time to get there.”

For a moment, that thought hurt. Raleigh had existed in a fog of coping day-to-day post-Knifehead. He’d spent the next five years never thinking about an After the Breach was closed. He had tried to ignore anything to do with Kaiju or the Jaeger Program- as much as he could when building a wall directly related to the topic- and if he wasn't thinking about an active Breach, he certainly wasn’t thinking about a closed one. As he’d told Mako right before their last drop, it wasn’t until he’d been thrown back into the program that he’d considered anything past the next day’s shift. 

Now a future stretched before him, nearly limitless with possibilities. What would he do with that freedom? What better days would he make for himself? He’d been affected by the kaiju for over a decade now - how could he define himself in a post-kaiju world?

No pictures came up when he tried to imagine it. And if he didn’t have them, how did Mako? She had had just as much of her life had been shaped by the kaiju, if not more. She was facing the same doubt and uncertainty.

Tendo had already finished his meal. He put his dishes in the sink and filled two cups from the coffeepot. Then he kissed Allison on the cheek before heading for the door. “Gotta hold down the fort in LOCCENT.”

“You’re just going to leave the cooks with the dishes?” Mako asked.

“Cooking and cleaning. All Becket boy here is good for.”

“See if you ever get bacon again,” Raleigh retorted.

“See if I make him eggs again,” Allison chimed in, but her tone was light as she dismissed her husband. She came over with her own plate. “Omelette if you want one,” she added before tucking in.

“Thanks,” he said, getting up to grab one. “I will do the cleaning, though. Go do your important dismantling.”

“You are such a sweetheart. What a rarity these days.”

“Raleigh is a kind man,” Mako agreed.

He winced at Mako’s words, thinking of times in the past when that hadn’t been true. Of a younger Raleigh who picked fights with good people because he wanted to feel better about himself, of a cocky pilot who’d been too full of himself around other people, of how he’d just pounded Chuck’s face in the other day - the evidence of which was still on his knuckles. He thought of himself as a good man, but hadn’t always been kind.

“He’s just a giant puppy,” Allison said, with a broad grin that immediately reminded Raleigh why Tendo had fallen for her. Something about that then made her sigh. “I want a dog. One I can bring the babies up with.”

“Babies?” Mako asked, stressing the plural.

“We’d like another. We just have to figure out the logistics.”

Raleigh was happy for the Chois, but the topic of children didn’t have much interest for him. He decided the best possible thing to do in the face of this conversation was finish his omelette, and start washing the dishes. The voices of the women as they chatted stopped sounding like real conversation and became a gentle background noise, which brought him back into memories of washing dishes with his mother and Jaz. He only remembered where he was when Allison nudged him aside to wash her dishes.

He reached out his hand for them. “I got this.”

Allison ignored his words and gesture. She put the dishes in the sink herself, then turned and looked Raleigh in the face. “You know you don’t have to constantly be useful to justify continuing to stay here, right? You’re PPDC. You belong here till the lights go out.”

He colored and looked down. The way she was looking at him stopped his words cold. She had a way of regarding people - like she saw Raleigh Becket the man, not Ranger Becket the Jaeger pilot, and wouldn’t let the one cover up the other. It rather reminded him of Tendo, and he wondered if the likeness had drawn them together, or if she’d learned it from her husband. With a stare like that confronting him, anything he could joke about would be a transparent attempt to get away. So he answered her honestly.

“I’ve had to work for a place for the last five years. You don’t do shifts, you don’t eat, you don’t have somewhere to sleep.” A one-shouldered shrug accompanied the next words. “Can’t unlearn that habit overnight.”

“You think you’re gonna get kicked out of the Shatterdome today just because because there are no more Jaegers to jockey?” she challenged.

He looked down as a lump formed in his throat, finding that somehow compassion and understanding burned more than harsh jeers and indifferent chill.

Mako saved him again. She placed an arm gently on Allison’s. “Ms. Choi,” she said, firmly but respectfully. “I will handle this.”

Allison nodded, patting Raleigh’s arm once more before moving away. “If you’re still out of sorts when it’s all done here, you have a place with us, okay?” she said on her way out the door.

Mako waited until it was shut before speaking again. “Sit,” she told him.

Raleigh shuffled back to the table and picked up his chai. He was mostly concerned with needing the feeling of something in his hands, but he took a sip of it anyway, noticing that it was getting cold.

Mako slid back into her chair across from him. “Is that really what you were afraid of?”

Raleigh shrugged again, saying nothing, knowing she knew what was left unsaid.

“We don’t know what’s happening with this Shatterdome yet. It might get sold to a government, or kept as a research location, or converted into housing of some type. Regardless, it’s going to take several months to decommission it. Lima took a year. We’ll have to strip everything out of the Jaeger bays, might have to do some repairs after we’re done, the K-Science space might need to be brought up to code, and LOCCENT-”

The detail overwhelmed him, and he held up a hand. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Your construction background will be invaluable for the type of work that’s going to be required over the next few months.” Her lips twisted slightly, and he felt a flash pass through the space between their minds, something sharp and bitter blossoming on his tongue.

“You think I’m more useful than you?” he asked incredulously. “When I was your age-” and oh God, how strange it felt to say that to his copilot! He wasn’t used to being the younger one - “I had one thing going for me. I was a jockey. You? You’re a brilliant engineer.”

“Your talents work outside of Jaeger engineering and piloting,” she said softly. “Five years in construction - five years learning what to do in the real world.”

Now he understood the core of what was bothering her. Real world. That place outside of Shatterdomes, a place Mako hadn’t been in for what, a decade? He couldn’t remember how long ago Onibaba was.

The PPDC bases and their self-contained subculture was what she knew best, and it was quite possible that as a base brat, she didn’t understand the cultural norms of places outside. And with the Program shutting down, her home was dissolving away. Of course that would be frightening. She’d already lost one family and been assimilated into another, and now she was facing a second transition, this time without an anchor like Pentecost to get her through.

But Raleigh knew something Mako didn’t seem to grasp yet. The outside world Raleigh spent five years in was a world under threat of the kaiju apocalypse - and that world didn’t exist anymore. Because of them. It was brand new out there, ripe for change and reshaping, and they had a chance to be in on that.

He meant what he’d said to her before the Pitfall drop. He’d never thought about the future in the last five years because there’d never been hope of anything other than working and starving and freezing and dying alone one day at the top of the wall, leaving his ration cards for someone else to claim. And he knew from the Drift that so much of her life had been devoted to fighting the endless war, just like his and Yancy’s had been. Well, he’d learned how to get past that on his own - but she wouldn’t have to, not with him.

Realizing that the silence had lingered, he cleared his throat and spoke. “Universities are going to be banging down your door,” he told her. “Even if we don’t build Jaegers for other purposes, the work we did here going to be studied for decades. Of course you’re going to be in demand. I mean, you were the head of the restoration project. You think you couldn’t be Doctor Mori in five years?”

“Hermann said I could get anywhere I wanted,” she admitted.

“He’d be the best to know.” Raleigh drained the last of his drink, set down the cup, and reached his hand across the table for hers. “You know I’m gonna stay here till the end.” She was wrong in thinking she didn’t have an anchor.

Her hand nestled into his like they were designed to fit together. “I know. And after?”

“I’m sure they’ll need a welder in Oxford, or Cambridge, or wherever else you go,” he told her.

Her answering smile was brighter than the dawn.


End file.
